Blueshift of absorption edge and photoluminescence in Al doped ZnO thin films

Abstract

ABSTRACTPure and Al doped ZnO thin films are fabricated on quartz substrates by sol–gel method, and then analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmittance spectra, and photoluminescence (PL) measurements respectively. XRD results reveal that all the thin films have a preferential c-axis orientation. With the increase of Al doping, however, the peak position of the (002) plane is shifted to a low 2θ value. On the other hand, the data of spectrometer transmittance are obtained, with which the band gap energies of Al doped ZnO films are calculated by a linear fitting method. The band gap is found to be broadening, and the absorption edge has an obvious blueshift to the shorter wavelength with increasing dopant concentration. PL measurement is also conducted, and deep-level (DL) emission and near band edge (NBE) emission are observed in pure ZnO thin films. But DL emissions are depressed when Al is doped into thin films. And the peak of NBE emission has a blueshift to the region of higher photon energy as the Al concentration increases, a performance which tallies with observations through the optical transmittance data. The study demonstrates that the blueshift of optical properties in the ZnO:Al films, can nevertheless be easily manipulated and managed by controlling dopant concentration, a big plus to the said films in their applications in broadband UV photodetectors with highly tunable wavelength resolution.